-Experiences in Blogging: "As Iron Sharpens Iron"

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." -Prov. 27:17

One of the more important reasons for Christians, especially pastors and ministers, to blog is what I call the "Iron Sharpens Iron" effect. As one posts articles and others stop by to comment, there is an ongoing sharing process that one cannot duplicate easily through other forums. Other Bible teachers and pastors will come aboard and drop a comment or two which actually in my experience helps to clarify and refine my own writing and teaching. The feedback can become a real blessing.

-Why Blogging? -A Bible Study Example

For years I have taught Bible studies at church and in small home groups, usually to groups of from 10-50. Last year I decided to put a Bible study on the internet utilizing a blogging program. It is not a very successful site and certainly not well known nor even that impressive, but it was read by over 75 different people last week, plus more (an undetermined number) accessed it through 43 feeds. In addition, they came to the site from 9 different countries. All in the last 7 days.

Now here is the best part. Nearly every lesson that I have posted so far is read by someone every week.

-On Blogging: “Be More Than a Blip in the Blogoshere

Here is a good article on blogging from the Washington Post, by Dan Zak. It contains some good advise for those starting out and even for bloggers who have been around for a while. Read the entire article if you want you blog to reach a greater audience. The main points in the article are elementary but useful and profound. 

-Increasing Visibility and Traffic to Your Blog

There are a number of things that you can do to increase the visibility of your ministry blog and the number of different people actually visiting your site.  Are numbers all that important?  Ask a Pastor if he or she would rather have a growing church or a stagnant one.

A lot depends upon the goals and reasons you started the blog in the first place. 

-Why Blogging?: As an Additional Tool For Pastors

 Why Blogging? Because God and his son Jesus Christ need equal time in the blogosphere.

Pastors have so little real time to influence their people and blogging can extend and increase the opportunity to share the Gospel and the Christian world view not only with their own congregation, but also with anyone else who happens to come across the site. Best of all, blogging can literally be done at anytime, and the time investment is minimal compared with the possible results.

-Why Blogging? -A Ministry or A Hobby?

 Millions of people are involved in blogging, look at blogs everyday, and search the internet. There are 10s of millions of blogs that post about religion and proudly wear the title of ‘Godblogs’ and probably even more websites that can be identified as religious.

Many of those sites are produced by the writers as a hobby, and then there are other sites which are obviously designed to be an internet ministry.

-Why Ministry on the Internet and Blogging?

Soon nearly every family in America rich or poor will have a computer or access to one and/or a tablet or cell phone with access to the internet. Internationally, the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate. As a media for ministry the potential is really unlimited.

It is really amazing how many people can be reached and how many nations can be touched by a very simple ministry located on the World Wide Web.

-Writing Titles for Your Posts–Some Good Suggestions

Here’s a good article from DailyBlogTips: “Write Your Titles CAREFULLY and AFTER the Post”

Daniel Scocco writes that titles are important and more time and effort should be given to composing the best possible headline for a post. It is a fact that most decide whether to read an article or not based upon the title alone.

-Comment Policy–Why it’s a Good Idea!"

Anyone who’s been publishing a blog for a while has received comments that are inappropriate for a Christian site–comments full of obscenities or bearing links to pornography–or comments that you would rather not have published on your blog.

There are always those Christians who consider it their mission to drop pre-written articles into the comment line of any post that comes close in anyway to their specialty issue. Mention ‘baptism’ in a post and you might receive an unsolicited 2 page teaching on "why infant baptism is a false practice"–posted on the comment line. You may even agree with the teaching but it really doesn’t respond in any way to the original post–what do you do?

Book Review: "Clear Blogging:"

“How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them”

By Bob Walsh (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2007, 351 pages)

 An excellent book on why one should blog and how to get started. Bob gives suggestions about getting started publishing a blog with Blogger, Windows Live, and TypePad and evaluates which blogging platform might be best for you considering your goals and what type of blog you wish to publish. <Read the rest of the review>